Twilight
by Araceli Maura
Summary: Takes place after the series. Basically Meryl runs off, stressed out over everything and needs to get away from her feelings for Vash. Vash chases after her. Drama ensues.
1. Escape

Twilight  
  
  
  
Chapter 1: Escape  
  
~I was stained, with a role, in a day not my own   
  
~But as you walked into my life you showed what needed to be shown   
  
~And I always knew, what was right I just didn't know that I might   
  
~Peel away and choose to see with such a different sight   
  
~And I will never see the sky the same way and   
  
~I will learn to say good-bye to yesterday and   
  
~I will never cease to fly if held down and   
  
~I will always reach too high cause I've seen, cause I've seen, twilight  
  
-Vanessa Carlton  
  
~Meryl~  
  
The night air was warm and calm, smelling vaguely of raindrops and musk. Dew had just begun to settle its way onto the grass and it dampened my white boots as I trod across it toward the Thomas stables, stepping quietly to avoid waking those that slept soundly in the town that I was about to abandon. Abandon, now that was funny. How could you abandon something that wasn't your home to begin with? Growing attached to things only made it harder when the inevitable came. That's why I never latched onto anything, never really called anything my own. My thoughts darkened as I kicked through the long grass, stumbling now and then on random rocks that crossed my path. Narrowing my eyes, I attempted to move without tripping. If I could manage a few more steps without falling flat on my face I'd be good. Summoning a type of natural grace I had never possessed, I sidestepped a few hazardous objects and danced my way over to my Thomas that was snorting softly as it inhaled bits of grass. Unhooking it from its restraints, I climbed onto its back and neatly tied my small bag behind me, checking the sturdiness of the reigns and patting it softly on the head to calm its resolve. My eyes traveled back to the small building I had just retreated from, searching and finally resting on a small window on the right of the second floor. The light was out and the window was open slightly, its curtains blowing softly in the breeze. A small candle burned itself down in the window of the first floor, flickering briefly in the gentle breeze. This is it; this is what I'm finally leaving behind. I had never really liked living there anyway. The small rooms and lack of storage had always irritated me, making me long for the large office that had long ago been my place of employment.   
  
I blinked back the tears that had suddenly made their way into my eyes, threatening to overflow and fall peacefully to the ground. There was nothing here I should miss; I should be happy to get away from it all.   
  
From him.   
  
Well that did it. The tears broke past my barrier and fell silently down my cheeks and dropping onto the hand that held the reigns. I should just leave now; I need to leave now. This wasn't where I belonged anymore; this wasn't where I was needed. Biting back the sob that wanted to pierce the night, I pulled on the reigns lightly, causing my Thomas to jump into action and begin retreating from the constraining stables. When the house was nothing more than a dying thought in the wind, I allowed the tears to fall and let the sobs rack my body. There was no one out here to care or question why I cried, only the wind and the forgiving stillness of the night.   
  
***  
  
Earlier that night…  
  
"Meryl."   
  
The voice cut through the night air like a butcher knife, startling me out of my stream of consciousness and jarring me into awareness. I looked over to my left where Millie sat at the small kitchen table, her arms curled in front of her and one finger lightly tapping the surface. I felt like a teenager caught in the act of sneaking out of the house late at night. One arm still rested lightly on the bag at my side, all of my things packed snuggly inside of it. I realized then that it must have been obvious what I was doing. Packed bag dragging behind me, cape latched and thrown tightly over my shoulders. She knew I was leaving.   
  
A sigh escaped my lips and I turned to face my long time business partner, the woman who had traveled with me through all of this madness. She watched me with a distant look on her face, her eyes transfixed on a past I couldn't recall. It had been like that with her since the priest had died. Millie walked around wearing her expressions like stage masks. During the day she was cheerful supportive Millie, at night she was withdrawn and secluded, brooding on a past that could never be rectified and events that could never be changed.   
  
"Where are you going Meryl?" Her voice sounded lost, quiet like a child who doesn't understand an adult situation. I didn't want to tell her that I was leaving. I didn't want to say the words that wanted desperately to spill from my lips and crack the thick silence that had suddenly surrounded us. These were things I could never tell her. Things going on inside of me that she wouldn't understand and perhaps not even want to. So I set my expression to the one I reserved for business deals and spoke lies to the one woman who had trusted me all of these years.   
  
"I-I have to go back home, Millie. There are a few things I need to take care of." I had never liked to lie to people. In fact, I had never been all that good at lying. In all my years of dealing out insurance claims and amending situations I had never once found the need to lie. There was usually a way to dance around the situation, hold something back or slip the conversation another way to avoid a blatant lie. Millie didn't deserve my lies and I knew it. But I couldn't tell her my real reasons, couldn't burden her with my own demons and tortured thoughts. So I pretended that I was doing it for her own good, that in not telling her the truth it would protect her.   
  
Her small voice broke the stillness as she brought her sad eyes to mine. "Are you coming back?"   
  
Simple words, a question I should have been able to answer easily. And yet…my voice caught in my throat as I made to spill another lie to her. I had lied once already, I didn't want to cover it with another.   
  
I looked away, focusing my attention on the cracked floorboards under my feet. "I don't know. I just…don't know."   
  
A quiet stillness invaded the room and hung over my head like a storm cloud. A sick feeling had developed in the pit of my stomach and brought a bitter taste to the back of my throat. I hadn't intended on telling anyone that I was leaving. My original plan had been to simply leave, walk out as they all slept and never look back. Having to deal with the pain of facing each of them as I told them what I planned to do scared me. I didn't want to hurt anyone, not anymore than I already had.   
  
She was breathing quietly, a labored sound that seemed to blend with the wind and push the dread away. This was just something I had to deal with. Maybe it would hurt her less if she heard it from my mouth then to just wake up the next morning and find me gone. At least then she would know that I was okay and wouldn't worry about my whereabouts.   
  
"Will you…" I snapped my eyes back to look up at her. A pained look crossed her features briefly but disappeared as she watched her hands move pointlessly on the table. "Will you…tell him?" She asked.  
  
Bright red, joined stillness, gentle green eyes watching me from under hooded eyes. A touch, a cry, emotion brimming and haunting the moment.   
  
I bit my lip roughly drawing blood and bringing myself out of the memories her simple words had evoked in my mind. My fists clenched and I shook my head uselessly to rid myself of the images floating before my eyes. He would haunt me forever. I knew this and yet I tried to repress it, to simply push away the feeling of longing and shake the disjointed hope. Tell him? No. I would never be able to tell him. I could never tell him I was leaving. To have to see the pain in his eyes to watch as he closed himself up against another wound. Or worse, to see no reaction at all. Watching as he smiled behind hollow eyes and bid me goodbye without any emotional reverence or sadness.   
  
No. I would never tell him.   
  
I shook my head, unable to speak the words to her. "I can't. I just don't want…" I looked up into her eyes that begged me to stay a hopeless desire that could never be fulfilled. "I don't want him to worry is all." I knew I was giving her more than I had intended to. I was letting her gain my full intentions, ripping back the façade and revealing my true purpose. I was never coming back.   
  
Still looking down at her hands that seemed to move on their own before her, she whispered pleas to me that I could not understand and could not answer. With a shaky breath she asked her final question. "What should I tell him…when he asks?"   
  
A slight smile curved my lips, arching them artificially and without thought. I had never smiled like that before. It was something between sadness and cynicism, an emotion that would never be defined. "You mean if he asks?" I responded, the smile quickly fading from my lips as its falsity began to hurt.   
  
"He will ask, you know that." The inevitable lump I had been trying to avoid made its way into my throat and hindered my speech.   
  
A million things ran through my head, and yet I couldn't grasp any one of them. "Tell him…" Yes Meryl, tell him what? What would you say to this man, this man that had stolen your closed off heart and unknowingly branded it his own?  
  
Vash.   
  
His name brought heat to my face and quickened my pulse, forcing every nerve in my body into shocked alertness. I was never truly alive until I met you.   
  
Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I tightened my grip on my bag and fought the tears back from my eyes. "Tell him…I'm gone." Settling finally on something remotely familiar I brought my bag back up to my side and stepped past Millie, stopping when I was only slightly past the table.   
  
"Goodbye Millie." I turned to look at her face but it was turned away from mine, effectively concealing her expression from my eyes. "You were always a good friend. Take care of yourself." My breath caught in my throat as I struggled with the next words I would speak. It was only a whispered breath, a thought that died on my lips. "Take care of him for me." My footsteps echoed in the empty room as I walked away, stepping through the door and closing it quietly behind me forever. 


	2. Abeyance

Chapter 2: Abeyance  
  
~Sure that star can twinkle  
  
~and you're watching it do  
  
~boy so hard boy so hard  
  
~but I know a girl  
  
~twice as hard  
  
~and I'm sure  
  
~said I'm sure she's watching it too  
  
~no matter what she's got in her right dresser  
  
~tied  
  
~I know she's watching that star  
  
~Vash~  
  
If I watched him long enough I could almost believe that he was truly safe from it all. I could almost force myself to believe that his madness will have left him when he wakes, that he will finally grow to understand what we were raised to believe. At least, what I was raised to believe. That human life is worth sacrificing for and is worth saving. His face remained still, his quiet breath the only sound in the empty bedroom. I pulled the covers up more tightly around him and crossed the room to close the window where a chilling breeze had started to make its way into the room. I turned to look at him again, my twin who only in silent stillness resembled something more peaceful, a glimmer of what I only hoped he could one day become. He resembled me only when he slept, for then his eyes didn't glint with mad intentions and sick desires. He just looked like…Knives. The way he did when he was a child, before he was allowed to become twisted and tainted, before he adopted his crazed ideologies and desire to hurt and cause destruction. Through me. I closed my eyes tight to rid myself of the visions that assaulted them. July, Legato, Wolfwood…People that had died at my hands, people that had died because of who I was. Vash the Stampede, the 60 billion double dollar man who could not escape his own past and the hatred of his brother.   
  
Wolfwood…  
  
The memory burned my throat and stung my eyes. Wolfwood, the priest who had traveled with me and stayed by my side when things turned wrong and fought with me when I could no longer save myself. The obsessive chain smoker that carried a portable confessional with him and a cross loaded with more artillery than a small army would carry. I smiled at the memory, allowing a small tear to fall and trace the side of my face, landing softly on the green blanket that lie over my brother's still form. He had been in a coma since the day I brought him here; unconscious and thrown over my shoulder, his form unmoving and riddled with fresh bullet holes I had just given him. Another shudder racked my body as I thought of the final fight that had almost claimed one of our lives…perhaps even both. I wonder sometimes, if it would have been better if we had just wiped each other out, taken each other's lives and rid this planet of our existence. But then, I had never approved much of suicide. I didn't like to take the easy way out of things.   
  
Sighing heavily, I turned away from Knives' labored breathing and stepped quietly through the door, making sure it was closed and latched properly behind me. I wasn't entirely sure why it was that I continued to lock his door. It wasn't as if he would suddenly wake up and decide to go for a midnight stroll. Maybe I was protecting them from him. What if he did wake up when one of them was tending to him? What if he tried to hurt them? My heart jumped into my throat as I checked the latch one more time. You could never be too careful.   
  
The smell of freshly cooked pancakes filled the air around me and excited my nostrils. Food.   
  
I suddenly became aware of the fact that I hadn't eaten much in the past couple of days and followed my legs as they led me down the small hallway and down the stairway that led into the kitchen. There Millie stood, her back to me as she slaved over the stove, two stacks of steaming pancakes set out on plates around her. I clapped my hands delightedly and was vaguely surprised to see her jump at the sudden sound. Millie wasn't usually the easily surprised type. She turned to face me briefly; a smile that would have caused Wolfwood to cringe plastered across her usually child-like face. Something hid under the face she was showing me now, one that smiled and talked casually about eating before all the food got cold. It was a hidden emotion behind her clouded eyes that wiped the smile from my face and caused my heart to pound in my chest. Something wasn't right.   
  
"Millie." I said, my voice dead calm.   
  
She stopped in mid-sentence, having already spouted off something about setting out the place mats and wiping off the table. The smile stayed put for just a moment before wavering and finally breaking from her face. It was replaced with something much darker. A look that I never again wanted to see cross her innocent features.   
  
"What's wrong?" My voice sounded hollow and distant as it bounced off the walls and reverberated through the small room like a recently rung bell. The atmosphere seemed off as I stood before her, my eyes staring her level in the face. I could hear the distant sizzle of the batter in the pan and smell as it began to burn.   
  
Her lips parted as if to speak words to me, before ultimately closing under her indecisiveness. "It's…nothing." She said, averting her eyes and pretending to fuss with something on the table that I couldn't see.   
  
People had always tried to hide their emotions from me. I understood now that it was a humanistic defense—something they relied on to conceal the pain and pretend that they weren't hurting. If everyone else believed they were fine, then they would be. It was a false state of grace that never lasted for long, always broken down by another that was smart enough to see through the thin veil.   
  
I saw through to Millie as I watched her bustle nervously about the kitchen, her brown hair fluttering around her face as she moved the dishes from the sink to the table in a determined 'need to keep busy' manner. There was something in the way she moved that set off something in me, a kind of panic that I had only experienced when something happened to those I cared about. Coming behind her quickly, I put out a hand to stop hers from shifting the plates aimlessly around the table, watching as her right hand froze just above the third plate of steaming pancakes. She never looked at me, just kept her eyes transfixed on the blue plate that held the warm food.   
  
"She's gone." She spoke the words quietly, as if she didn't really expect me to hear them. There was a kind of sick silence that had settled in the air between us. It was like the calm after someone had died, a strange sort of heaviness that seemed to shift the weight of the room and make the air seem too intense and smothering.   
  
The faucet dripped slowly behind us, the only sound in the silent room that smelled sickeningly sweet from the overabundance of food.   
  
"She left last night."   
  
Drip.   
  
"…had to take care of some things at home, she said…"   
  
Drip.  
  
"…family seems like they could use her help…"   
  
Drip.  
  
"I asked her not to go." The tone of her voice shifted, breaking into one of a scared child. "I wanted to tell her…how much she was needed here. I knew that's what she needed to hear. But…I just couldn't. I don't want her to be unhappy, Mr. Vash." A tear slid down her face and dropped onto my hand seeming to stain permanently into my skin. I had acquired many scars in my decision to try to protect people, to save them from the things that would hurt them. Her tear burned on my exposed skin, leaving a trail of sadness and regret. Another broken heart, another injured soul.   
  
"Millie." My voice cut through the air unexpectedly, quieting her stifled tears and muffled sobs. "She didn't really go home, did she." It was more of a statement than the question it should have been. I already knew the answer in my heart. She was gone…and she wasn't coming back. Something in me quivered and threatened to snap as I stared at the broken woman before me, her shoulders shaking in her silent crying. When had I begun to care? When had they become so important to me, infiltrating my heart and mind, becoming more than just the insurance girls? Becoming my friends.   
  
Meryl.  
  
Becoming something more than that.   
  
"Do you know where she plans to go?"   
  
"No."  
  
"Did she mention anything?"  
  
"Just that she was going home."   
  
"A lie."  
  
"Yes."  
  
She sniffled, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and staring blankly in front of her. "Miss Meryl never lies much, so I can see through it when she does." She smiled a sad smile that caused a pain in my heart. "She's not very good at it."   
  
I shook my head, removing my hand from hers and stepping back away from the table. "No. Good people don't need to lie."   
  
Somewhere during our conversation the dripping had receded and all that remained was the low hum of the refrigerator in the corner and the dry sound of Millie's unrepressed sobs. There was no question in my mind what I was going to do. It wasn't a question of want nor was it a question of obligation. It was something that lied between desire and resolution, a long repressed feeling that had at last found the surface and was able to breathe. As soon as my foot hit the first step I had already decided on a course of action. But first, I was going to need something. 


	3. Fault

Chapter 3: Fault  
  
~Lonely, lost every part of me  
  
~maybe, outstayed my company  
  
~walking in to sad scenes  
  
~hold me tight and say goodbye  
  
~I've seen, behind tomorrow's sky  
  
~you be, my missing alibi  
  
-Natalie Imbruglia  
  
~Meryl~  
  
There wasn't much to do in a bar other than drink. If you just came in to 'have a glass of water' the bartender became snide and most times condescending. Those around you were just as equally non-accommodating. The only thing that set apart a drunken person and a completely sober person was that a drunk was more likely to tell you just how it was without the burden of politeness—regardless of the fact that you had just met them nearly 5 minutes ago.   
  
"So...ssso ya' see…ya see that there aren't many women out there that'll drop everyting for ya. I mean," The man who was now perched rather precariously to my right suddenly tipped forward, spilling his glass of whatever alcoholic substance the bartender had just given him, his nose flattened against the reflective wood of the bar. He belched loudly and I turned away to avoid having to breathe in the smell of alcohol that had already seemed to infiltrate into my clothing and hair. "but you…" he started again, regaining his composure and blinking blurrily at me over his glass, "You're different…I can tell. You…you would die for your man." He waved his glass in a strange display of defending off an oncoming attack and managed to slosh a hefty amount of beer down the front of my shirt. I couldn't tell what was more annoying-being forced to spend an entire night in a cavern that was completely full of drunken males who gaped at me openly as if I were a showpiece in a zoo, or the staggering excuse for a man who tried desperately to hold onto conversation sitting in front of me.   
  
The pounding headache that begun to form in the back of my mind since the sun had set had now returned in full force. This was just great. I might as well get drunk at this rate, it's not like I wouldn't be feeling the repercussions of either choice in the morning.   
  
"….find a way to keep him." I had only just realized that the man had been talking the entire time I had been attempting to wipe the excess bits of beer from my uniform. He stopped suddenly and stared at me in a way that would suggest he wasn't exactly as drunk as he put on to be. "He's the only real thing you have you know."   
  
I stopped my useless attempt to cleanse myself and met his gaze sharply. "Excuse me?" A creeping feeling had entered my body and I felt heat rise to my face as if caught in an inappropriate act.   
  
"There are people in this world who run from the things they don't understand," he continued, setting his glass down carefully in front of him as if acknowledging that I had seen through his disguise. "And there are people who embrace them." He caught my gaze. "You're the only thing that still feels alive to him."   
  
I felt my breathe catch in my throat and I struggled desperately to regain a kind of composure I wasn't sure I ever had in the first place. "I-I have no idea what you're talking about."   
  
He stood, placing a hefty amount of gold on the counter while doing so. "I figured you'd say that." Placing his small brown hat atop his head, he brushed past me, stopping only a few feet behind me. I didn't turn to face him.   
  
He paused momentarily, his presence seeming to stand out vividly amongst the din of the busy bar. "Twilight is perhaps the most beautiful time of night. Don't you agree?"   
  
My eyes flickered briefly to the window in front of me resting momentarily on the sun that now dimmed into the horizon. I shook my head. Finally regaining the courage to face him, I spun on my stool, my finger pointed in a threatening manner to all those who apposed me. "Who…" I blinked.   
  
He was gone.   
  
Turning around swiftly, I scanned the bar for any sign of the man I had been talking to moments before. I saw no sign of his dusty brown hat; no sign of his worn overcoat. It was as if had never existed. This isn't right. I know I was talking to someone. He was sitting right here! But it's impossible that he could have left without me knowing, I knew that. When he had stood to brush past me he had faced the north wall which was just that, a wall. No door, no window, no way of escaping. The only door was the one that was just to my right and it creaked and banged obtrusively whenever used. I stood abruptly, my hand sliding against the bar as I jumped down from my stool in an effort to leave. My right hand knocked a piece of cold from the counter and I bent to pick it up. The gold the man had left as payment for his drinks. I placed it back on the bar, the creeping feeling invading my body once again, and left the room.   
  
It took me a moment to fight my way to the door. I was having enough trouble trying to bypass a group of sloppy drinkers who swaggered at anything that presented a challenge to them, a waitress who was fending off two short men in top hats with a plastic tray, and a dog that had somehow meandered into the course of action, looking up at me and whining slightly as I brushed past. Once the 'escape the bar in one piece' stage had been completed, I strode out into the silent desert, the creaky door swinging shut noisily behind me. Now I could breathe; at last I could find the peace I had been looking for.   
  
But why was it that whenever I closed my eyes to be rid of the thoughts that lingered there, I was forced to view them? Why could I never fully run from what prevented a challenge to me, what was something that I could never solve in the first place? When. When would I find peace again. Moving slowly, I kicked up dirt around me as I walked blindly into the retreating light, the blues that had entered the sky and mingled with the orange to become a gray-the gray that descended upon twilight. Twilight—even that reminded me of him. There was little that didn't anymore. I used to watch him as he 'snuck' out at night. Those times when I was delegated to keep watch over him, when he was still healing from the duel to the death with his own twin brother. He would get up suddenly as I sat in the shadows in the kitchen, listening to the creaking of the wood and constant drip of the faucet that had somehow escaped the list of things to fix. I would stay up late, mostly to see if he would sneak out again that night, and mostly because I no longer had the desire to rest. My body, already so tired from years of work and self achieved stress, would allow me little sleep. So I would sit up, as dusk descended and twilight approached. It was the one time I would allow myself to truly watch him. To know that I could look at him, unguarded and without an excuse and know that he would never feel the heat of my stare, never know that the thing concealed by the shadows was a woman. A woman who had yearned for so many years to escape her own soul, to finally be free of a heart that constantly sought for more than it was given.   
  
He moved with the grace of a cat, placing his feet only where his mind had already mapped out a clear area that wouldn't allow sound. Smooth feet glided against the wood flooring, his hands neither searching for a vacant area nor thrown out to provide assurance of impending objects. He simply moved forward slowly, hands at his sides, eyes set on the door in front of him where he would carefully open it, slide through, and close it seamlessly and without a sound. This always amazed me. How even if I tried I could never get through the kitchen without slamming into an object, stubbing my toe, and hitting a creaking floorboard that would wake even a snoring Millie. I could never understand how he was so easily able to navigate such a dark space, a space that even in clear daylight wasn't that easy to maneuver. He never ceased to amaze me in little ways.   
  
I would get up slowly, trying to match his grace and failing slightly as my hip brushed against the table or my feet made a shuffling noise against the dirt that still remained clinging to the floor. Moving toward the door, I would stand lit against the screen by the moonlight as he sat on the cliff as he always did; staring out into the distance as if it would give him the answers he was looking for. The breeze would blow his hair softly away from his face and I would stare, entranced with the simple sight of him, the way his eyes never seemed to move, the way his body in all it's grace and skill would never see the need to shift. For hours I would watch him, only moving when he would give a slight shift and I would be forced to step back into the confinement of the shadows incase his eyes danced in a direction they shouldn't. He would always remain a mystery to me, I knew this. The one thing in my life that didn't come with a direction manual or a list of definitions. I could never crack him, could never deal my way around him. He would be the only one who would never fall for my lies and the only man I truly never had the heart to lie to. He was also the only man I could never allow myself to have. And in that moment, when that realization came as it always inevitably did, I would allow myself to step away. To break the connection I fooled myself into thinking I had with him at that moment. That moment when we were both silent and observant. When nothing in the world mattered more than what we were given. And all seemed to be complete.   
  
I reached up, wiping a renegade tear from my eye angrily. I drove myself away. I would never blame my decision to leave on anyone but myself. I moved slowly forward, following a stripe of white before me until I reached it, running my hands down the length of its smooth surface. It felt cool, stable, dependant. Something that would never change. This well had been here since I was a child; they had built it when I was four years old in fact. I remember it because it was the day of my grandmother's birthday and we were all out celebrating on the front stoop of the tavern. I was too young to actually go in the tavern so my grandmother gave me a paper hat and spun me around three times and told me to find something that ran clear and true, something that would show my pretty face but did not conceal my faults. Being a four year old, riddles weren't exactly something I was apt to comprehend just yet. Eventually I came across this well, with its little white roof that had long ago fallen apart and the small bucket that always glistened with fresh cool water. I remember filling up my hands with its intoxicating substance and running back to my grandmother as fast as I could. Look grandma! I said. I figured out the riddle you gave me! And she just smiled and patted my head, telling me that I would grow to be a strong woman indeed.   
  
"Level headedness is the sign of a brilliant woman." She told me as she wiped my hands on her apron. "And it will get you absolutely everything in this world."   
  
And so it has. It's gotten me a brilliant job. It's gotten me a true friend, Millie, who's been nothing short of encouraging, guiding, and helpful. And it's gotten me…  
  
Into a whole hell of a lot of trouble.   
  
Damn. There I go thinking again. I though I had just come out here to stare at the stars? Not to remember my past and dwell on the present. It's stupid anyway. I no longer live either of those lives. I'm not a child anymore and I don't take refuge in things that are comforting. I left all that long ago.   
  
I managed to find a comfortable spot on the well, sitting on it just the way I had as a child. Swinging my legs down the edge—a dangerous habit that could easily lead to falling in. But I had never much cared about that. It had been the only risk I was ever willing to take in my whole life.   
  
Something wet dropped into my lap, and for a moment I almost believed that something had splashed up and out of the well and I had missed it as I looked away. For a moment I almost convinced myself that I wasn't crying. That the tears weren't coming, and that I wasn't hurting. I brought my hands to my face as a sob rocked my body. I was never really good at convincing anyway. 


	4. Tryst

Chapter 4: Tryst  
  
~the best gesture of my brain is less than  
  
~your eyelids' flutter which says  
  
~we are for each other: then  
  
~laugh, leaning back in my arms  
  
~for life's not a paragraph  
  
~And death i think is no parenthesis.  
  
-e.e cummings  
  
~Vash~  
  
I had thrown the jacket away long ago. In the desert that day, when I had almost taken the life of my brother. I no longer had a use for it now. I no longer had to force myself to fight. So I threw it carelessly into the air, watching as the wind picked it up and blew it a few feet from where I stood. It shielded the sun briefly floating like a red cloud in the wind. I had turned away before I saw it land. My only concern was getting my brother back. My only concern now was being happy.   
  
I had been wrong in thinking that I would never need to fight again. That one day I would have to don the scarlet coat again to get back something I truly loved. Something that this time, chose to run away from me. Something I had caused to run away from me.   
  
So now I chased her. It was funny in an ironic sense. The stable, level headedly stubborn insurance girl that never turned away from me, always stood by me, and never ceased to chase after me when I ran, was now finding her own solace in escape. Something I thought I had been the only one who was all too good at.   
  
It was a little trickier to find her than I had anticipated. I guessed on her location based on Millie's information. She had given the excuse of visiting her family. I knew it was a hint that she had dropped, a purposeful lead that would linger incase anyone was wise enough to grasp it. Her home town was easy to find after I searched through the records in her room, her ID and social papers told me the place of her birth and the name of her parents. The only task that proved to be challenging was locating her actual whereabouts. She could have stayed in a number of inns, used a number of names, or simply chosen to stay with her parents.   
  
I didn't think it very smart to check her parent's home. After all, a tall blond haired guy in a bright red coat was just a bit too conspicuous if you ask me. I really didn't feel like getting shot at more than was necessary. After checking a number of inns I found the one she was staying at and tried her room. Empty. This left one option—the pub. It was the most unlikely place to find Meryl in my opinion. Never much of a drinker, she usually looked down her nose at me when I drank a bit too many and seemed to stare at me with that ever disdainful look of 'you're going to regret that in the morning'. Before I had the chance to properly search for her through the windows I caught a glimpse of white to my left. It had to be her. Only Meryl would find sitting on the edge of a well in the middle of the night a completely acceptable pastime. And here I thought she was supposed to be the sensible one who would pull me back from such a thing scolding, "You could have fallen in! Do you know what's down where?"   
  
The thought brought a soft smile to my face. I could never depend on myself. Through all of my years of existence I could depend on no one around me. Rem had been the only one who had ever showed me otherwise. That people were there to be trusted, that sometimes you just had to open up to them and they showed you the amazing things they had to give in return. All these years I ran from the part of me I despised. All these years I ran from the memory of the only woman I had ever truly loved. And in the end I had run directly back into her arms. In the soul of a woman who cared just the same, who never doubted herself and who saw me as nothing more than a human being. And that was more than I had ever been given in my entire life.   
  
It took me a moment to realize that she was crying. I had thought that the shifting of her body was just the wind blowing her cape about freely. But as I moved closer, I could see that her body shook with each tear that dropped as if it were a part of her that caused her pain to shed. Her small frame shuddered as her hands came up against her face, pressing against her eyes as if to stop the tears or to shield the image of their falling.   
  
There was nothing for me to do. I was afraid to approach her and have her yell at me. To retaliate with a blow and say that she had run from me for a reason. That she was crying because of all the pain I had caused her, that she needed to cry to be rid of me. And yet there was another part that hoped that maybe she was crying for me. It was a stupid hope, and I should have just turned and quietly walked away.   
  
But I never really approved of just walking away.   
  
So instead I came closer to her, close enough to feel as she trembled, to see the tears that dropped onto her lap and into the dark water below her feet.   
  
"Meryl." 


End file.
